Meet the Board!
It’s Katie, here with another blog post - today’s topic: What the heck is a board, and why does ACO have one? Today we’ll cover what the ACO Board does, what it doesn’t do, as well as the roles of our organization’s board members!
by Katie Brockhage
Hello, Alliance LARP Colorado Community! It’s Katie, here with another blog post - today’s topic: What the heck is a board, and why does ACO have one? There’s a lot going on underneath the hood at our chapter, even though we’re still less than 2 months old, and the board is at the center of a lot of it! We hope this post helps to pull the curtain back on our internal operations, and give everyone a better idea of who’s calling the shots around here. Today we’ll cover what the ACO Board does, what it doesn’t do, as well as the roles of our organization’s board members! Without further ado, let’s jump right into it.
What is the ACO Board, and what do we do?
Any organization’s board has a similar set of responsibilities - to oversee the high level operations of the organization, focusing on the financial strategy, operational oversight, and accountability for the organization. A for-profit board tends to be focused on maximizing shareholder financial value, whereas a nonprofit board’s focus will be the health and sustainability of that organization’s mission.
ACO’s board is taking the latter stance. Rather than viewing this organization as an investment vehicle, our team is fully committed to doing the post good for our community, making sure that everyone has bigger, better, LARP games to attend for years to come. In fact, we are so dedicated to putting community and mission over profit that during our last full board meeting, a preliminary bylaws was unanimously ratified requiring that all board members directly contribute a set amount per year to ACO’s operational budget. Board members receive no financial compensation for the work they do, so those contributions go directly to running amazing events for you, the community.
Speaking of which, what exactly is that work? The primary responsibilities of the board are as follows:
Manage Legal Responsibilities - The board is responsible for ensuring that our LLC, Front Range Immersive Experiences, as well as our chapter itself, comply with all local, state, and national laws and business regulations, while also meeting the terms set forth in our contract with the Alliance LARP national organization.
Manage Financial Responsibilities - The ACO board makes high decisions about how ACO’s money is allocated and spent - primarily in the form of approving budgets submitted by our staff leads, approving new staff positions, paying taxes, and managing our banking needs.
Create Organization Bylaws - Bylaws are a series of policies which the board votes on that govern high level operation for the organization. ACO’s bylaws are still in the oven, but we are working hard to ratify them soon, and once we do, they will be publicly available!
High Level Decision Making - Whenever a major decision with the potential to shape the long-term future of the business or chapter needs to be made, the Board will be voting on those decisions, with lots of relevant staff feedback; this includes deciding how our shareholders will vote on national level owner votes.
What Doesn’t the board do?
The very most important thing to understand here is that the board is NOT responsible for the day-to-day operations of Alliance LARP Colorado. While the board is responsible for high level direction, the boots on the ground are our volunteer staff - from project management, to plot writing, to making props and organizing convention booths, day to day initiative and decision making will be resting in the hands of our hard working staff team.
Due to their dedication and passion for the community, all of our board members DO occupy one or even multiple staff positions. It’s important to remember, however, that being on the board is not inherently linked to being a member of the volunteer staff, nor vice versa. Many of our staff positions will be released soon; and along with them, the chance for other members of the community to be getting involved in the decision making and operation of ACO!
Who’s on our board?
The Alliance LARP Colorado board consists of 5 members, each with their own roles. While all board members share the same broad set of responsibilities, each role has its own specific part to play as well:
Board President: Soren Jensen. As President, Soren is the board’s keystone. Heading up broader board operations, coordinating meetings, and serving as a key guiding voice are among this role’s duties.
Board Secretary: Katie Brockhage. As Secretary, Katie is responsible for the board’s minutiae. From taking notes at board meetings to coordinating and executing board votes, the Secretary keeps board operations focused and on track.
Board Treasurer: Seth Peck. As Treasurer, Seth’s primary focus is on the financial element of the board. From setting up our bank accounts to taking point on taxes and handling payments, the Treasurer makes sure that the Dollars make ‘Cents’ (wow, that worked better as a spoken pun).
Out of Game (OOG) Director: Rynne Whitnah. As the OOG director, Rynne is focused in on the needs of the organization that pertain to everything from lay-off until the next game’s lay-on. As an expert in these areas, the OOG Director helps inform board policy as key decisions are made.
In Game (IG) Director: Nathan Klisch. Serving as the OOG Director’s counterpart, the IG Director is a specialist on everything that takes place live at a game, as well as closely related areas like prop sourcing and budgeting. When it comes down to a decision that will unfold at a live event, the board counts on their IG Director to provide an informed take.
You might also be noticing a couple faces from our founding cohort who are not listed as board members… namely, Davion and Shyloh. During our meetings and discussions about how we wanted the board to look, the seven of us unanimously agreed that five board members was the right number, and unanimously agreed that the five selected board members were the right people to be filling those seats! Davion and Shy will both be continuing to have a massive impact on our day to day operations with the team, serving as our Head of Narrative and Quartermaster respectively; two roles that are 100% central and critical to our ability to tell impactful stories, and to have a functioning Tavern and NPC Camp.
Looking Forward!
Today’s post is just a taste of what ACO is cooking! We’ve been hard at work across all fronts… from preparing to open nearly 25 volunteer staff roles for hiring, to planning out the most epic fundraiser we can, all the way down to securing a site (and game schedule!), building an NPC camp and spending late nights working on plot and worldbuilding, our team has so many more exciting updates to share with the community soon. Next week, expect ACO’s very first Operations Update - an ongoing blog series where we will keep the community up to date on What’s going on and how we’re preparing for live games in 2024 and beyond. We’ll see you then!
We hope this provided valuable insight into ACO’s inner workings. As always, if you have any more questions about the board anything else, you can contact us directly at customerservice@alliancelarp.co (That’s co, not com!), or drop a message on our community discord server located at https://discord.gg/alliancelarpco. We can’t wait to hear from you, and will be releasing blog posts with even more information about what’s going on at Alliance LARP Colorado soon.
Cheers,
Katie
Oh Look, We Have a Blog Now!
Katie here with Alliance Colorado’s first official blog style post - as more information and exciting updates come out about happenings at our lovely game, expect more of these to come out right here on our brand new blog page!
Hello, everyone! Katie here with Alliance Colorado’s first official blog style post - as more information and exciting updates come out about happenings at our lovely game, expect more of these to come out right here on our brand new blog page!
The blog will be used for non-critical information and announcements such as informatics, plot teasers, rules rambles, and anything else that fits the billing - but don’t worry about missing out! Whenever we make a new blog post, it will be shared to Discord, Facebook, and Astral projected into your mind while you sleep. (Okay… we might not have the technology for that one yet, you got me. But you will be dreaming of all the exciting action to be had at ACO soon!)
We’re excited to share information more using this medium - in fact, stay tuned for another post coming soon… tomorrow perhaps?
Cheers,
Katie and the ACO team